whipped up and around, and Charlie stepped back with something hot and wet suddenly flooding down his chest. He tried to yell, but no sound came out.
He dropped the Winchester and reached for his throat with both hands. Blood cascaded over them. He felt it pumping out through the huge slash his fingers found.
Charlie’s knees hit the rooftop as his legs folded up underneath him. He finally managed to gurgle a little as he swayed there. The night was warm, almost hot, but he felt cold now as he struggled to accept the fact that his throat had just been cut wide open by the bowie knife clutched in the stranger’s hand.
The struggle was a short one. With another gurgle, Charlie toppled forward and died.
Ed Callahan had thought about going the other way when he left Arrowhead with his mule earlier that night, instead of returning to the foothills of the Gilas north of town.
But Joshua Shade had warned him about that, putting an arm around Ed’s shoulders and saying in that soft, persuasive voice, “Now, you don’t want to be led astray by any foolish ideas, Brother Ed, like not coming back to tell me what you find out. If you do that, I’ll have to come looking for you, and you know the Lord will lead me right to you.”
Ed didn’t doubt it for a second. Shade was downright spooky, the way he seemed able to peer right through a man. Like he knew everything the other fella was thinking and feeling.
“So you find out anything you can that you think will help us, and you come right back here and tell me. Will you do that?”
And God help him, he’d nodded and said, “I s-sure will, Rev’rend. I’ll be back.”
He had kept his word. He had spent several hours hanging around Arrowhead, talking to folks. He’d found out about the guards Sheriff Flagg had posted on top of the bank and the hotel. He’d even seen Charlie Cornwell and Harlan Eggleston climbing up on those buildings to take the night watch.
Nobody seemed to notice when he left town and headed for the foothills. No one in Arrowhead had ever paid him much mind to start with, and this evening was no different.
When he got back to the spot overlooking the town where he’d left Shade and the rest of the outlaws, he didn’t see anybody. At first, he had thought that he was lost, that he’d come to the wrong place.
Then, like phantoms, they had materialized out of the shadows, surrounding him and making his blood run cold. Joshua Shade stepped forward, rested both hands on Ed’s shoulders, and said, “Tell me, Brother Ed, what have you found out?”
Ed spilled his guts, of course. What else was he going to do? Lie to this outlaw, this…demon? Run the risk of having Joshua Shade pursuing him like a hound from Hades for the rest of his life?
Hell, no!
And when he was done, Shade had squeezed his shoulders and said, “Good work, my friend. The Lord will be pleased that you’ve provided so much assistance to His humble servants.”
“Wh-what are you gonna do now?”
“Bring God’s message to Arrowhead, of course. Help the sinners to repent and put the things of this world aside.”
Ed bit back the groan of despair that tried to well up his throat. He knew good and well what Shade was going to do. He and the rest of the gang were going to raid the town, looting and raping and killing. They might even burn it down.
There was nothing Ed could do to stop them, so he might as well save his own life, he told himself. He clung to that thought as he sat down on a rock and waited. Shade didn’t want him to leave yet.
“You should stay, Brother Ed,” he’d said. “Stay and witness the fruits of your handiwork.”
That was just about the last thing Ed wanted to see right now, but Shade didn’t give him any choice.
A couple of men rode off toward Arrowhead, and after what seemed like forever to Ed, a light suddenly flared to life and moved back and forth three times. Somebody had lit a match and signaled with it.
Mere seconds later, the same sort of signal was repeated from the other end of the settlement. Shade put his hands on his hips and said, “Excellent! The sentries have been taken care of.”
Murdered, that was what he meant, Ed thought, and again he struggled to keep from groaning.
Shade turned toward him and motioned for him to get up. Ed stood and swallowed as the outlaw leader approached him.
“We’ll be going now,” Shade said. “Would you like to accompany us, Brother Ed, or would you rather receive your reward now?”
“R-reward?” Ed repeated. “You didn’t say nothin’ about no reward.”
“You didn’t think the Lord would allow your work to go unrewarded, did you?”
Ed rasped calloused fingertips over his beard-stubbled jaw. He felt bad about what was about to happen to the folks in Arrowhead, mighty bad, but…well, since there was nothing he could do about it…he might as well get something out of the deal, hadn’t he?
“If it’s all right with you, Rev’rend, I’ll, uh, take whatever you got for me and go on my way. I don’t care how much it is neither. I’ll take whatever you want to give me.”
Shade shook his head. “Oh, it’s not money, brother. It’s a heavenly reward.”
With that he brought his hand up and plunged a bowie knife into Ed’s belly. Ed cried out in agony as he felt the razor-sharp blade being tugged across his stomach, opening him up so that the coils of his guts spilled out through the wound as Shade stepped back. Ed tried to stuff them back inside, but failed. They slipped out of his hands and uncoiled onto the dirt at his feet. He staggered, fell, lay there gasping as his life ran out.
The last thing he was aware of was Joshua Shade’s voice.
The son of a bitch was praying.
Chapter 6
Matt Bodine’s eyes snapped open in the darkness. He didn’t know what had awakened him, but he had a feeling it couldn’t be anything good. His instincts wouldn’t have roused him from slumber otherwise.
He sat up in bed. A little moonlight filtered in around the curtain over the hotel room’s single window. The window was open to let in some fresh air, and the curtain swayed in and out with the currents of the night breeze.
Before turning in, Matt had hung both gunbelts over the back of the chair next to the bed, so that the holstered Colts were within easy reach. He swung his legs out of the bed and stood up, plucking one of the irons from leather at the same time.
In bare feet, wearing only the bottoms from a pair of long underwear, Matt padded over to the window and used the Colt’s barrel to ease the curtain aside so that he could look out.
His room was at the rear of the hotel, as was Sam’s next door. The windows looked out on an alley.
Nothing was moving in that alley, Matt saw as he peered down from his window. He judged that the hour was after midnight, and the town was quiet and peaceful.
Well, maybe not so quiet or peaceful, he thought a second later as he heard a gurgling sound from somewhere overhead. It was followed by a thump on the roof.
That wasn’t right. Matt stuck his head out the window.
To his right, no more than a couple of feet away, a ladder leaned against the hotel. That would be the ladder used by the lookout Sheriff Cyrus Flagg had posted up there.
Sam’s window was on the other side of the ladder, and at that moment, Sam poked his head out, too, and looked toward his blood brother.
“You hear something?” Sam asked in a half whisper.
Matt nodded and gestured with the thumb of his free hand toward the roof. Sam brought his right hand into view, holding a six-gun. He gestured